Numerous applications for radar devices are known in widely differing fields of technology. For example, the use of radar devices is possible within the framework of the close-range sensor system in motor vehicles.
When working with radar devices, electromagnetic waves are radiated from a transmitting antenna. If these electromagnetic waves strike an obstacle, they are reflected, and after the reflection, are received again by a different or the same antenna. The received signals are subsequently fed to a signal processing and signal analysis device.
The endeavor is to collect and evaluate as much information as possible about the vehicle surroundings. Such information concerns the measurement of the distance of the motor vehicle to other objects, the measurement of the relative speed between the vehicle and other objects, and an angle measurement with regard to the object to be detected. If possible, these measurement objectives should be achieved with as low an expenditure as possible for equipment, the effort being in particular to realize as many measurement objectives as possible in a single radar device.
These efforts are especially problematic with regard to the measurement of angle information, since conventionally, a triangulation is performed on the basis of measured values from a plurality of spatially distributed sensors.
Possible applications for radar devices concern accident prevention (“precrash”), ACC (“adaptive cruise control”) stop & go, park distance control, semi-autonomous parking and detection of the blind spot.